freesia
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Loneliness was the ash that stifled his little flame and bred the mist that hid it. Friendship was the thing that lifted the flames above all that.


**A/N: **Written for **Errow** for the Seasonless Secret Santa Challenge. Hope you enjoy. :)

Also written for the Flower Language Challenge using the flower freesia, since it made such a perfect title for this fic.

* * *

**freesia  
**_the symbol of lasting friendship_

/

The wind howled, a guttering throat-howl buried within the thickly woven branches of the small forest. Thin wisps of cloud fled in terror, revealing the luminescent face of the moon in its blinding glory: a smooth round face that glowed with a white that wasn't its own, instead mirroring the sun as the millions – and more – pairs of eyes below mirrored it.

A wolf stood upon the hill, his back to the wind that thrashed in the forest deep. His ears were deaf to it, deaf to the struggle that tore skin off bark and leaf off stem. Even the sensitive lupine ears were further occupied, and behind him the wind struggled on in its binds.

The click-click-click of metaphorical chains were what occupied his ears: the snapping of flimsy branches were so ordinary a sound that they had no space in his feeble animal brain; it was only the bounds that kept him still, the lash on his back that dragged him forward, the smell of meat and blood in his nostrils that called to his claws – and the sweet siren's song that clung to his pearly white teeth. Even the own guttural screams that erupted from his throat were of no importance to him; they were all sounds of nature, of the backdrop upon which he lived. The sound of struggle and pain that persisted no matter the scene.

The sounds of human cries called forth the lone-wolf that slumbered in his soul, the monster who desired companionship and thought nothing of the cost.

But the world was silent that night, and he could content his unicoat heart to reflecting the moon, and think of the mist it stirred within his soul.

/

By day he was a boy, a little boy who shied away from company. A boy who chose to hide in a corner of the library with a book rather than seek the cold warmth that came from others. Often they laughed: laughed at the threadbare clothes that clung to him, laughed at the pale yellow eyes that seemed to be blind to the sun and instead clung to the waxing and waning shadow of the moon. They laughed at his reluctance to share the laughter with them: meaningless laughter that was drowned by the always-struggling wind that tried to beat down the tall tree trunks in its path.

And they laughed at some integral part of him that they knew, instinctively, was not like them.

He let them laugh; he told himself he didn't care but the grey mist in his chest festered off his hatred anyway. And when the moon was at its peak, the mist became alight: glowing like burning embers by a smouldering flame. And the silent world was the ash that stifled it: the carbonated air that wouldn't allow it to catch and spread like a wildfire. And so he could only scream and cry and be deaf to it all – ignore it all – because he screamed anyway, and no-body listened.

Not even him.

/

It didn't change as he grew a little older; he didn't_ want_ it to change, because that meant letting that torch-fire within his heart catch on prickly bushes and spread and destroy everything.

And he didn't want everything destroyed, even if he could barely appreciate the beauty of the world under the thick skin of bitterness. Or so he said to himself, over and over as he added another patch to that skin, another plaster. But the lonely nights where the moon was young or not at all would find him clinging to damp sheets with blurred eyes seeking something – _anything_ – to reflect, but finding nothing save a murky sky that was the mirror, instead of the mirrored, of his tremulous soul.

And he allowed himself to wish he wasn't a monster then, so that he might have a family, or a friend, to take that loneliness away. And he hears the wind howling still…but he stays far away from the forest. He knows the wolves are there: the normal kind, and those that are like _him_, who run dragging their chains behind without a care for laughter or love or sorrow –

Except they constantly run, and he hides for the other twenty-nine days, because human he might not be, but he can't face losing his humanity for any longer than that single night.

Even if he tells himself afterwards that monsters cannot feel sadness, or loneliness, or self-pity, and he is simply deluding himself.

In the nights of no moon, he also wonders exactly what he is deluding himself of.

/

He had given up on his delusions, or so he told himself. He did an awful lot of that in his life, but it seemed to help, because he kept on doing it. Telling himself things, feeding his nuzzled mouth sweet lies and letting the honey scent mask the rough lining of his skin. But then a letter came, a letter he left unopened on the kitchen table, because he saw the seal and knew where it had come from and what it was.

Or so he had thought. A man followed his lack of response: a man with a long flowing beard and hair to match. A man who cloaked himself in a sky that looked far more beautiful than that which pinned the earth from above, and whose moon were half-rimmed glasses that hid twinkling blue eyes.

He introduced himself as Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, and came into the house (for what monster had a home) with ease. The navy blue looked just as out of place as it had outdoors, however the man himself was relaxed, and his words were a different sort of sweet to his ears.

Bitter, mixed in with a grander, more delicate taste. And he felt raw longing at the thought, at a place that accepted all, where he really could be human for twenty nine days of a month…but he knew it was a delusion still. A new set of walls and some magic wouldn't kill the beast within, or the little fire that was elsewhere within the realms of his soul.

But the man smiled and welcomed him, and Remus found himself unable to say no.

/

His trunk hadn't taken long to pack; the school had sent a list and some gallons from the charity fund, and he'd had few other things aside. The forest he was glad to leave behind, with its haunting cries still caught on rose bush thorns. The empty house he had more mixed feelings about.

The first few nights he found himself unable to sleep, surrounded by others as he was. Others who talked constantly, who seemed to forget he had shrugged them off before and simply returned to him again. Perhaps it was the size of the school, but everything seemed to get swept up. He could remember no face, no scent, no staircase.

And when he was swept by the tide, being bumped against rocks, hauled up and then cast down again, he found his battered self was already hardened by the pain of his lonely youth, and it couldn't really hurt much more.

But when the tides slowed and he was hidden by his curtains at night, listening to the quiet laughter downstairs as he clutched something hard between his fingers and felt brittle wood beside his ear he found the tears he'd tried to negate still came to him. And they were his company, his companion in bed until he fell asleep.

And they would be the ones who had gone and left him drying in the morning.

/

He liked the library somehow; it smelt of books and wood but it was a dark and lonely place as well, despite the well-lit areas. He avoided those; they were always filled with people pouring over notes of all assortments, including the latest fashion magazine that would disgruntle any male. But there were more lonely corners that smelt of soft dust and soil and the hill that was the edge of the forest.

It almost smelt like home, and books were a companion he could take with no trouble at all. Words he could imprint upon his mind and would not turn against him: change their tone, or laugh at him

But there was a girl smiling kindly at him as she browsed books nearer, before turning to glare at a pair of boys who'd follow here. And there's be a pair, the same pair, grinning over at him as if they were planning something – which they probably wore, because even he had heard of this Sirius Black and James Potter…and the rat-tag Peter Pettigrew tagging along.

And then they let the lion out of the cage, and Remus really failed to understand how he was in Gryffindor with them.

/

He wasn't used to pranks being played on him; it was just another source of laughter, and no-one had really needed it before. But the angry face of their Dorm-Mistress was quickly quelled by the spilling webs the pair of boys wrought…and it came so easily to them, the tale of how they were "just trying to cheer him up" and "make him smile" and "feel at home". Even the Dorm-Mistress was smiling at the end of it.

And Remus might have smiled, just a little, even if he felt more tears later on as he floundered about between hope and acceptance, both delusions he'd thought he'd moved beyond. But it was enough, it seemed, because the self-proclaimed pranksters of Hogwarts had taken a liking to him.

He suddenly had more than one shadow, and he really didn't know how to feel about that.

/

The wind was howling again, and the moon growing in strength. It collapsed one night, and he was no longer a student but a monster trapped in its cage, and he was restless.

It was a new feeling; he could run rampart and howl and cry and scream to his heart's content once, cut and claw and bite through anything he came across. But now the doors were shut, and not just the physical doors he could break down with his powerful paws – because no-one was stopping him from that; the door was a symbol and nothing more. It was the tree that was the protector: the tree only a human could pass by for an animal would only smash at the hinges and not see the little knob to turn.

Something made him turn upon himself that night, and when he returned it was to the smell of rancid tears and blood and flesh.

/

His Charms book had begun to sing, but the muscles around his mouth were too tired to smile or frown. Eyes were upon him – they were always upon him, but his own eyes were busy searching for the ash that kept the little fire in his heart at bay.

It was starting to hurt his chest now, and he wondered if he should plead ill for it, as he had mumbled whenever the question arose.

It was a new feeling, to be constantly pushed into the limelight, to be unallowed to wallow in a little hole save for the amusement of those who walked over it. He had no hole, no hiding place, and even the screaming wind found itself dimming in the light of the words and the music of Hogwarts.

And then they made him an offer he couldn't refuse: a friendship under the guise of a business deal, but either way it was a dream – a delusion – he could not turn away from.

And so he accepted it, and the tears grew easy and less in the years that followed. The fire burned freely without the ash to smother it and he let it burn; now that the halter was gone it could run as far as it could, limited only by the heart that spurred it on.

And if the wind was howling, still trapped within the forest's binds, he heard it not, even when he ventured into the forest and heard its call. And when he looked up at the moon it was still a pale reflection in his eye, but then it would shower in multi-coloured sparks and there would be no spell to break.

He savoured the seven years of freedom he had, forgetting – deluding – a time that smouldering ash would return again, and along with it the cold dragging mist that hid the little light of his flame.


End file.
